5 ms·

In Pow, Money buys you mining capacity which is voting rights.

shanusmagnus 4y ago
It's true that in every field known to man, money buys influence, at least in some broad and hazily-defined sense of the word. But the form of influence that can be bought in btc is not voting rights for what happens with the asset, not in any direct way. The distinction matters here.
tboyd47 4y ago
Tell that to the BCH investors
etherael 4y ago
Mining BTC doesn't get you voting rights at all. The core devs will still make pants on head retarded changes and the centralised exchanges will dutifully trade their trash output as if it were really bitcoin, mining just gets you the right to maybe profit on rubber stamping their trash depending on market conditions. BTC has no mining. Only rubberstamping.
Dylan16807 4y ago
But you have to trade it away to buy the machines. That's very different from giving power to the people holding lots of coins.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Especially because mining is a business that you can fail at if you don't balance costs and income properly. That's much preferable to proof of stake where early investors can just squat on their coins indefinitely with almost zero cost to maintain their authority percentage forever.
  - yokem55 4y ago
    Except if the community at large doesn't like how a particular staker/validator is doing their job, the staker's assets can be burned in a hard fork that enjoys sufficient broad legitimacy. The capital can be outright destroyed. In contrast, there is no way a community in a proof of work system can burn a particular miners hardware if that miner becomes able to abuse the network. At most they could change the mining algo, but that wipes all miners out, and such a change can really only happen once.
- lottin 4y ago
  In PoW miners buy physical capital and electricity, in PoS miners buy digital tokens. It's exactly the same, except PoS is less detrimental to the environment.
  - rafaelero 4y ago
    It would be the same if holding a token from a PoS system cost money. Since it doesn't, then it is definitely not the same thing.
    - lottin 4y ago
      Of course it costs money, holding a token has an opportunity cost.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        The opportunity cost of not investing is in a different ballpark from spending that money on machines and electricity.
        lottin 4y ago
        You don't know that. Moreover PoS can require that the tokens be spent permanently (not just deposited somewhere).
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Yes I do know that parking money is a different ballpark of cost from spending money. > Moreover PoS can require that the tokens be spent permanently (not just deposited somewhere). Is that really a "stake"?
        lottin 4y ago
        So you're saying you know that an unknown quantity is greater than another unknown quantity.

It's true that in every field known to man, money buys influence, at least in some broad and hazily-defined sense of the word. But the form of influence that can be bought in btc is not voting rights for what happens with the asset, not in any direct way. The distinction matters here.

tboyd47 4y ago

Tell that to the BCH investors

etherael 4y ago

Mining BTC doesn't get you voting rights at all. The core devs will still make pants on head retarded changes and the centralised exchanges will dutifully trade their trash output as if it were really bitcoin, mining just gets you the right to maybe profit on rubber stamping their trash depending on market conditions. BTC has no mining. Only rubberstamping.

Dylan16807 4y ago

But you have to trade it away to buy the machines. That's very different from giving power to the people holding lots of coins.

anonporridge 4y ago
Especially because mining is a business that you can fail at if you don't balance costs and income properly. That's much preferable to proof of stake where early investors can just squat on their coins indefinitely with almost zero cost to maintain their authority percentage forever.
- yokem55 4y ago
  Except if the community at large doesn't like how a particular staker/validator is doing their job, the staker's assets can be burned in a hard fork that enjoys sufficient broad legitimacy. The capital can be outright destroyed. In contrast, there is no way a community in a proof of work system can burn a particular miners hardware if that miner becomes able to abuse the network. At most they could change the mining algo, but that wipes all miners out, and such a change can really only happen once.
lottin 4y ago
In PoW miners buy physical capital and electricity, in PoS miners buy digital tokens. It's exactly the same, except PoS is less detrimental to the environment.
- rafaelero 4y ago
  It would be the same if holding a token from a PoS system cost money. Since it doesn't, then it is definitely not the same thing.
  - lottin 4y ago
    Of course it costs money, holding a token has an opportunity cost.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      The opportunity cost of not investing is in a different ballpark from spending that money on machines and electricity.
      - lottin 4y ago
        You don't know that. Moreover PoS can require that the tokens be spent permanently (not just deposited somewhere).
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        Yes I do know that parking money is a different ballpark of cost from spending money. > Moreover PoS can require that the tokens be spent permanently (not just deposited somewhere). Is that really a "stake"?
        lottin 4y ago
        So you're saying you know that an unknown quantity is greater than another unknown quantity.